Comment:Hey, Kirsten, Please note whether you are keeping a virtual journal or blog, and provide a link to it. If you're keeping a virtual journal, you can share only with me. Thanks! Dr. Y
I shared a google document with you as a virtual journal. Please let me know if you'd like me to re-share.
Definitions of Adolescent Literature
Adolescent literature does not have a prescribed "reading level," but it has consistencies in that the conflicts and the characters feel relevant and tangible to the adolescent audience. I was interested to read that the concept of adolescent literature actually runs counter to the classical texts that students are asked to read, but to which they do not feel connected. As a result, teachers and students who must study the classics embark together on a task that is inherently fruitless and void of meaning. I am guilty of being concerned that adolescent literature is more of a "beach read" situation; therefore, not as elevated as texts of classical merit. However, adolescent literature is thematically challenging as students view situations with lessons applicable for all lives. Ironically, while I recall the feeling of achievement when dissecting a challenging text, the texts I read most voraciously as an early adolescent (early 2000s) were the young adult novels cited in this chapter, e.g. The Chocolate Wars series, The Giver, and Speak. I have also noticed what the authors speak of as the conflicting duality between parents' desires for children to take on adult responsibilities and the desire to keep them protected. This duality plays a vital role in choosing texts for students and anticipating parent push back when the themes seem too "mature."
Comment:I think YA's feel a similar conflict and tension -- at times, pressure to be a YA, while at other times, pressure to be more of an adult. How these are defined and whether or not a YA is able to maintain their essence or "stay gold" as they "come of age" is another important characteristic both in life but also in YAL. Best, Dr. Y
I am overwhelmed by the implication on page 21 that pulling more talented readers to delve into the classics is a mistake. This is the way I have always operated as a teacher, high school and middle school. I am going to give some serious thought to that assertion as I choose texts this year. My main takeaway from this chapter is that the challenge and rigor can come from the actual texts responses, rather than the text itself. Burgeoning adolescents benefit far more greatly from relevant works.
Comment:I appreciate your honesty here. I think you are wise to realize that we as teachers can be much more flexible in terms of both the books we teach, but also the books we recommend for our students. Along with this, I think it is important to expand the notion of relevance -- it has to take into consideration the student's needs and interests.
History of Young Adult Literature
Through this chapter, my understanding of young adult literature was greatly expanded. I was interested to learn about the origin of books directed at young people as long ago as the Middle Ages and the prevailing culture at the time of pushing young people to read the classics over the more romantic stories. In my opinion, and based on the chapter, true young adult literature must capture young adults where they are in real life. Instead of "honor thy father and mother," there are situations in which fathers and mothers do not demonstrate the deserving of honor and adolescents should have the opportunity to read about them.
From my own experience, growing up with two grandmothers who are librarians, I noticed a distinct contrast in their opinions of young adult literature. The mass produced, not necessarily "quality" literature cited in the chapter was dismissed by one of my grandmothers and supported by the other. In my opinion, reading is reading and whatever text is pushing young adults to read is valid. I am always excited to recommend a text to a young person that is well-written and embodies the canonized definition of "literary merit," but I am just as excited when a student who has been deemed a "reluctant reader" gets pulled into something with a compelling and relevant story, despite the status of the novel itself. Comment:How cool to have access to their insights and experience!
The chapter also mentions new ways, outside of traditional novels, that students are gaining access to reading. As a middle school teacher, I have heard about many "fan fictions" that students read voraciously. They are constant expansions of literary worlds they already love. I can also tell there is a certain feeling of accomplishment among the students who have read about something their parents might not necessarily know they know about. I'm happy to keep their secrets.
Evaluating Young Adult Literature:
Pre-Reading: I tend to choose books that present me with an engaging conflict. Whether is it between people, a historical conflict, or any sort of society vs. self conflict. This is the same reason why I choose read the articles that I read. The author has to make me think about something that I've never thought about before, make a personal connection with me and then extend it, or inspire me to do something in our world.
After Reading: I was encouraged to see that the opening of this chapter detailed that students want to read about realistic content, very similarly to me. Students also want to be hooked into the novel. The chart with the first lines from well-known young adult books illustrated why those books are so well known. Unsurprisingly, students want books with characters with whom they can relate. They want characters around their age going through the same emotional challenges that they might face in their daily lives, while adding the excitement of a well-written plot.
This chapter both encouraged and discouraged the teaching of classic texts for me. Young adult texts are written to pull in and keep young adults engaged through relatable themes and relevant conflict, but one of the rewards of teaching a classic text is scaffolding students to find the universal themes and experiences that all humans experience (this is how I teach Shakespeare, for example). After reading this chapter, I am forming a vague idea that it might be very impactful to pair a YAL book with a classic text that I would normally teach if they have similar themes.
I was also impressed with this chapter's connection to teaching writing. I have to do a narrative writing unit soon and I tend to dread it because I have stuck students, students who are writing a stream of consciousness that can't be followed, and/or students who take a plot in too many different directions. I plan to use the writing techniques and the model text examples to enhance my writing unit and buoy myself throughout that unit.
Comment:Yes, good models are key!
Using Reader Response:
Prior to Reading: I have been assigned a wide variety of texts as a student at all levels. Mostly the major works have come from what we would call the traditional Western canon (especially in college). These works were valued due to their quality and lasting influence, as well as their mirroring of what our society considers "worthy" literature. Since middle school, the responses I have been asked to draw typically took place as classroom discussion, then culminated in an essay or some sort of "creative" project" with confusing instructions.
After Reading: As a teacher, I am a huge proponent of reader response. I use multiple systems of reader response in my classroom, including journaling, guided discussion, small group discussion, etc. Currently, I am basing my class on a culture of "writing for reading." I am doing this partly because students get much more out of a text and a discussion if they are required to write and partly because writing is not tested in North Carolina as a state subject, so I am building reading comprehension for the EOG while improving writing simultaneously. I get many of my ideas about reading response from Doug Lemov's Reading Reconsidered and I even developed a protocol based on his reader response suggestions that is used school-wide. I feel very confident about the readers response model and the many different ways of implementing it. Often I wish I could be in one of my classes because instead of sitting in rows answering comprehension questions, my students are responding to all types of readings in engaging and critical ways.
Comment:I'm glad you're making use of a source that emphasizes the importance of reader response in general, but especially as a starting place for teaching reading / literature. As you suggest, the reading / writing connection is an important one, and we'll be reading more about this soon! Thanks in advance for agreeing to bring the book in to class.
Required Reading:
ln middle school and high school, I was not offered choice in reading for English class. I enjoyed many of the books we read, but most of them were classics or from the canon. In 11th and 12th grade, I took AP English classes which seemed to narrow the teachers' choices further to the classic canonical works. When I taught AP Literature two years ago, I chose canonical books as well, until I received negative feedback for my "white male" choices. This led me to Their Eyes Were Watching God which is an AP recommended text. Observing how the recommended texts for AP have grown is enlightening and really benefits students in demographics who have not traditionally engaged in AP courses,
As a student, I also experienced solely the one book, one class model of teaching literature. It always worked for me because I never felt behind or overwhelmed, but looking back, I bet many students felt that way in my class without my knowledge. As a first and second year teacher, I relied on this model as well, but it made me force fit books to students and often had a negative outcome.
Currently, with the exception of one particularly small class, I have had more success with thematic literary circles. So far I have done one on dystopian novels and one on coming of age novels. The students seemed to really enjoy these circles and I was able to use the same protocols and overall lessons with the whole class, but chose leveled novels.
English Language Learners
I am dual-certified in English and English as a Second Language, so this is a subject that I have extensively studied. Additionally, I completed a second student teaching internship in an immersion self-contained classroom with students who spoke diverse languages. This chapter summarized and emphasized all that I have studied, but a few aspects stood out to me as things I've never thought about before. For one, the piece about the population in general being open to exposing themselves to new cultures and experiences, but ELL teachers being uneasy about the diversity of ELLs really impacted me. Often when we look at our students, we see a series of goals: increased literacy levels, increased interest in reading, increased writing skills, increased discussion skills. When we student other cultures, we see a different set of goals: appreciating differences, being exposed to new things, taking everything in and exploring. ELLs can be disconcerting because we look at them with the first series of goals and their limited English seems like a detriment to the goals we are trying to achieve. Ultimately, this disconnection provides an obstacle our ELLs because a teacher's confidence in them is crucial to their language learning success.
The other aspect that stood out to me was the idea of cultivating harmony between native English speakers and ELLs in a classroom together. Native English speakers may be interested in the ELL's experience, but not sure how to be appropriate about asking or sharing. Additionally, in adolescence, when peer interaction is such an important aspect, it it can be highly detrimental to have a negative language experience with native-speaking peers.
Overall, the emotional and interpersonal aspects of learning language are just as important as the technical aspects.
Diversity:
At the beginning of the chapter, there is a list of different people with different backgrounds, identities, and experiences looking for themselves in the traditional English (or Western) canon. This made me think of the bias that teachers bring to the classroom as well because we "know what we know" to a certain degree and choose literature from that perspective. The explanations collected from English teachers are also familiar to me and my experience as a teacher. In the chapter, the quoted researcher, Rosenblatt, notes that works that do not meet the needs of the reader will produce a neutral or even negative response. When students demonstrate a lack of interest in a text, they are often blamed for being problematic and/or the teacher is blamed for not creating engaging enough lessons, discussions, and assignments around the text when this could be remedied by choosing texts that are more engaging for the reader.
In connection to the ELL chapter, I noticed a parallel in meeting the emotional needs of the students and adjusting the goals of the educator. Instead of the goal being reading and analyzing a classic text, the teacher could make the goal of applying the needed skills to a text of higher interest.
The end of the chapter emphasizes affirmation of students' cultures, ethnicities, and identities outside of the dominant white culture. I think this is the most crucial aspect of the concept because teachers, who are majority-white, cannot always empathize with the invalidation that students who do not see themselves in literature experience.
Symbolic Object:
My symbolic object for my future as a teacher is a treasure chest. I am fortunate to gain resources to continuously grow as a teacher, whether it is from colleagues, research, or students themselves. Since this is my first semester as a teacher and student simultaneously, I have really valued getting to add to my growing container of resources, as well as gain practical uses for their implementation. In this class, I have grown as a teacher in that I have gained a whole new type of literature to teach and a wealth of books to study and recommend to my students. I have already implemented books I have discovered in this class in my instruction and have seen new engagement and interest in reading from my students. I have also gained the confidence to provide my students with much more independent reading time and I have seen gains in their comprehension when I assess them.
Comment: Hey, Kirsten, Please note whether you are keeping a virtual journal or blog, and provide a link to it. If you're keeping a virtual journal, you can share only with me. Thanks! Dr. Y
I shared a google document with you as a virtual journal. Please let me know if you'd like me to re-share.
Definitions of Adolescent Literature
Adolescent literature does not have a prescribed "reading level," but it has consistencies in that the conflicts and the characters feel relevant and tangible to the adolescent audience. I was interested to read that the concept of adolescent literature actually runs counter to the classical texts that students are asked to read, but to which they do not feel connected. As a result, teachers and students who must study the classics embark together on a task that is inherently fruitless and void of meaning. I am guilty of being concerned that adolescent literature is more of a "beach read" situation; therefore, not as elevated as texts of classical merit. However, adolescent literature is thematically challenging as students view situations with lessons applicable for all lives. Ironically, while I recall the feeling of achievement when dissecting a challenging text, the texts I read most voraciously as an early adolescent (early 2000s) were the young adult novels cited in this chapter, e.g. The Chocolate Wars series, The Giver, and Speak. I have also noticed what the authors speak of as the conflicting duality between parents' desires for children to take on adult responsibilities and the desire to keep them protected. This duality plays a vital role in choosing texts for students and anticipating parent push back when the themes seem too "mature."
Comment:I think YA's feel a similar conflict and tension -- at times, pressure to be a YA, while at other times, pressure to be more of an adult. How these are defined and whether or not a YA is able to maintain their essence or "stay gold" as they "come of age" is another important characteristic both in life but also in YAL. Best, Dr. Y
I am overwhelmed by the implication on page 21 that pulling more talented readers to delve into the classics is a mistake. This is the way I have always operated as a teacher, high school and middle school. I am going to give some serious thought to that assertion as I choose texts this year. My main takeaway from this chapter is that the challenge and rigor can come from the actual texts responses, rather than the text itself. Burgeoning adolescents benefit far more greatly from relevant works.
Comment: I appreciate your honesty here. I think you are wise to realize that we as teachers can be much more flexible in terms of both the books we teach, but also the books we recommend for our students. Along with this, I think it is important to expand the notion of relevance -- it has to take into consideration the student's needs and interests.
History of Young Adult Literature
Through this chapter, my understanding of young adult literature was greatly expanded. I was interested to learn about the origin of books directed at young people as long ago as the Middle Ages and the prevailing culture at the time of pushing young people to read the classics over the more romantic stories. In my opinion, and based on the chapter, true young adult literature must capture young adults where they are in real life. Instead of "honor thy father and mother," there are situations in which fathers and mothers do not demonstrate the deserving of honor and adolescents should have the opportunity to read about them.
From my own experience, growing up with two grandmothers who are librarians, I noticed a distinct contrast in their opinions of young adult literature. The mass produced, not necessarily "quality" literature cited in the chapter was dismissed by one of my grandmothers and supported by the other. In my opinion, reading is reading and whatever text is pushing young adults to read is valid. I am always excited to recommend a text to a young person that is well-written and embodies the canonized definition of "literary merit," but I am just as excited when a student who has been deemed a "reluctant reader" gets pulled into something with a compelling and relevant story, despite the status of the novel itself. Comment:How cool to have access to their insights and experience!
The chapter also mentions new ways, outside of traditional novels, that students are gaining access to reading. As a middle school teacher, I have heard about many "fan fictions" that students read voraciously. They are constant expansions of literary worlds they already love. I can also tell there is a certain feeling of accomplishment among the students who have read about something their parents might not necessarily know they know about. I'm happy to keep their secrets.
Evaluating Young Adult Literature:
Pre-Reading: I tend to choose books that present me with an engaging conflict. Whether is it between people, a historical conflict, or any sort of society vs. self conflict. This is the same reason why I choose read the articles that I read. The author has to make me think about something that I've never thought about before, make a personal connection with me and then extend it, or inspire me to do something in our world.
After Reading: I was encouraged to see that the opening of this chapter detailed that students want to read about realistic content, very similarly to me. Students also want to be hooked into the novel. The chart with the first lines from well-known young adult books illustrated why those books are so well known. Unsurprisingly, students want books with characters with whom they can relate. They want characters around their age going through the same emotional challenges that they might face in their daily lives, while adding the excitement of a well-written plot.
This chapter both encouraged and discouraged the teaching of classic texts for me. Young adult texts are written to pull in and keep young adults engaged through relatable themes and relevant conflict, but one of the rewards of teaching a classic text is scaffolding students to find the universal themes and experiences that all humans experience (this is how I teach Shakespeare, for example). After reading this chapter, I am forming a vague idea that it might be very impactful to pair a YAL book with a classic text that I would normally teach if they have similar themes.
I was also impressed with this chapter's connection to teaching writing. I have to do a narrative writing unit soon and I tend to dread it because I have stuck students, students who are writing a stream of consciousness that can't be followed, and/or students who take a plot in too many different directions. I plan to use the writing techniques and the model text examples to enhance my writing unit and buoy myself throughout that unit.
Comment: Yes, good models are key!
Using Reader Response:
Prior to Reading: I have been assigned a wide variety of texts as a student at all levels. Mostly the major works have come from what we would call the traditional Western canon (especially in college). These works were valued due to their quality and lasting influence, as well as their mirroring of what our society considers "worthy" literature. Since middle school, the responses I have been asked to draw typically took place as classroom discussion, then culminated in an essay or some sort of "creative" project" with confusing instructions.
After Reading: As a teacher, I am a huge proponent of reader response. I use multiple systems of reader response in my classroom, including journaling, guided discussion, small group discussion, etc. Currently, I am basing my class on a culture of "writing for reading." I am doing this partly because students get much more out of a text and a discussion if they are required to write and partly because writing is not tested in North Carolina as a state subject, so I am building reading comprehension for the EOG while improving writing simultaneously. I get many of my ideas about reading response from Doug Lemov's Reading Reconsidered and I even developed a protocol based on his reader response suggestions that is used school-wide. I feel very confident about the readers response model and the many different ways of implementing it. Often I wish I could be in one of my classes because instead of sitting in rows answering comprehension questions, my students are responding to all types of readings in engaging and critical ways.
Comment: I'm glad you're making use of a source that emphasizes the importance of reader response in general, but especially as a starting place for teaching reading / literature. As you suggest, the reading / writing connection is an important one, and we'll be reading more about this soon! Thanks in advance for agreeing to bring the book in to class.
Required Reading:
ln middle school and high school, I was not offered choice in reading for English class. I enjoyed many of the books we read, but most of them were classics or from the canon. In 11th and 12th grade, I took AP English classes which seemed to narrow the teachers' choices further to the classic canonical works. When I taught AP Literature two years ago, I chose canonical books as well, until I received negative feedback for my "white male" choices. This led me to Their Eyes Were Watching God which is an AP recommended text. Observing how the recommended texts for AP have grown is enlightening and really benefits students in demographics who have not traditionally engaged in AP courses,
As a student, I also experienced solely the one book, one class model of teaching literature. It always worked for me because I never felt behind or overwhelmed, but looking back, I bet many students felt that way in my class without my knowledge. As a first and second year teacher, I relied on this model as well, but it made me force fit books to students and often had a negative outcome.
Currently, with the exception of one particularly small class, I have had more success with thematic literary circles. So far I have done one on dystopian novels and one on coming of age novels. The students seemed to really enjoy these circles and I was able to use the same protocols and overall lessons with the whole class, but chose leveled novels.
English Language Learners
I am dual-certified in English and English as a Second Language, so this is a subject that I have extensively studied. Additionally, I completed a second student teaching internship in an immersion self-contained classroom with students who spoke diverse languages. This chapter summarized and emphasized all that I have studied, but a few aspects stood out to me as things I've never thought about before. For one, the piece about the population in general being open to exposing themselves to new cultures and experiences, but ELL teachers being uneasy about the diversity of ELLs really impacted me. Often when we look at our students, we see a series of goals: increased literacy levels, increased interest in reading, increased writing skills, increased discussion skills. When we student other cultures, we see a different set of goals: appreciating differences, being exposed to new things, taking everything in and exploring. ELLs can be disconcerting because we look at them with the first series of goals and their limited English seems like a detriment to the goals we are trying to achieve. Ultimately, this disconnection provides an obstacle our ELLs because a teacher's confidence in them is crucial to their language learning success.
The other aspect that stood out to me was the idea of cultivating harmony between native English speakers and ELLs in a classroom together. Native English speakers may be interested in the ELL's experience, but not sure how to be appropriate about asking or sharing. Additionally, in adolescence, when peer interaction is such an important aspect, it it can be highly detrimental to have a negative language experience with native-speaking peers.
Overall, the emotional and interpersonal aspects of learning language are just as important as the technical aspects.
Diversity:
At the beginning of the chapter, there is a list of different people with different backgrounds, identities, and experiences looking for themselves in the traditional English (or Western) canon. This made me think of the bias that teachers bring to the classroom as well because we "know what we know" to a certain degree and choose literature from that perspective. The explanations collected from English teachers are also familiar to me and my experience as a teacher. In the chapter, the quoted researcher, Rosenblatt, notes that works that do not meet the needs of the reader will produce a neutral or even negative response. When students demonstrate a lack of interest in a text, they are often blamed for being problematic and/or the teacher is blamed for not creating engaging enough lessons, discussions, and assignments around the text when this could be remedied by choosing texts that are more engaging for the reader.
In connection to the ELL chapter, I noticed a parallel in meeting the emotional needs of the students and adjusting the goals of the educator. Instead of the goal being reading and analyzing a classic text, the teacher could make the goal of applying the needed skills to a text of higher interest.
The end of the chapter emphasizes affirmation of students' cultures, ethnicities, and identities outside of the dominant white culture. I think this is the most crucial aspect of the concept because teachers, who are majority-white, cannot always empathize with the invalidation that students who do not see themselves in literature experience.
Symbolic Object:
My symbolic object for my future as a teacher is a treasure chest. I am fortunate to gain resources to continuously grow as a teacher, whether it is from colleagues, research, or students themselves. Since this is my first semester as a teacher and student simultaneously, I have really valued getting to add to my growing container of resources, as well as gain practical uses for their implementation. In this class, I have grown as a teacher in that I have gained a whole new type of literature to teach and a wealth of books to study and recommend to my students. I have already implemented books I have discovered in this class in my instruction and have seen new engagement and interest in reading from my students. I have also gained the confidence to provide my students with much more independent reading time and I have seen gains in their comprehension when I assess them.